Protective body pads are often worn on the knees, elbows and hands of individuals who engage in activities that can expose these body parts to either repetitive shock or significant physical shock. Knee pads, for example, are worn by individuals such as carpenters and roofers who spend a significant amount of their working days with their knees pressed against an underlying support surface. Knee pads, elbow pads, and sometimes hand pads, are worn by individuals who engage in recreational activities such as roller skating or hockey. In these sports, the protection provided by these pads lessens the likelihood that an individual will be significantly injured if he/she is either struck during the activity or falls against a hard surface. A typical protective body pad includes a body formed of cushioning foam that is encased in a shell that is strapped around the limb of the individual. Often, a strip of leather or other relatively resilient material is secured to the outer face of the shell that is expected to receive the most contact with external physical objects. For example, the pads intended for in-line skaters are provided with resilient members so that, when the skater falls, the resilient members are normally the first element of the pads to contact the underlying pavement.
While current protective body wear are useful for reducing the injuries associated with many physical activities, they have not proven totally useful for all of these activities. For instance, protective body wear used by many individuals during in-line skating is basically a modification of that used by individuals engaged in ice hockey and other skating activities. While this body wear is useful for cushioning some of the initial shock to which a skater is exposed to as he/she initially hits the pavement, these pads do little to lessen the effects of some of the post-impact shock. This shock occurs because, when a skater falls, he typically strikes a hard cement or asphalt pavement that does not yield to physical impact. Once the individual strikes this unyielding surface, the force of the impact can be transmitted through the limbs of the individual to cause bones to break or can cause significant soft tissue injury.
Moreover, a problem with many protective body pads is that the material from which the shell material and the outer pads are manufactured, by their inherent nature, are not very porous. These components thus form barriers that prevent perspiration from evaporating and convective air flow from passing over the skin. The inability of the perspiratory fluid to be able to evaporate away from the skin and for cooling air to flow over the skin can make these body pads uncomfortably warm to wear. Furthermore, over time, perspiratory fluids retained on the skin can accumulate. This undissipated fluid can be the source of irritation or, in more severe cases, cause skin infections. Collectively, the uncomfortable and undesirable side effects of wearing body pads causes some individuals, particularly those engaged in recreational activities, to forego their wear. Such a decision increases the likelihood that the individual engaging in these activities will injure himself.